The darkness was almost edible.

Edna rubbed her fresh tattoo and tried not to think.

She had wrapped the clinky bits of her weapons, but the tape and cloth was rough against her back and legs.

She had deliberately left her watch behind, as a moment's inattention might get everyone killed.

She listened carefully for Evan.

He was off to the left somewhere, cradling a sniper's crossbow.

If she had detected him, he would have been in trouble.

While she had surveyed the site during daylight for days, most of her memory was eroded by the dark.

Everything looked much different.

Not that she could truly see.

Her eyes took whatever light or lightness it could and made a mockery of her other senses.

If it weren't for the danger of dozing, she would have closed her eyes.


It was a room full of clocks.

Some of them were electric, thank God. His heart kept trying to align itself with one or more of the ticking sort.

Micha's computer screen rolled before his eyes with the help of the crappy flourescents and the slow fan.

He could hear and almost taste the 60 cycle hum of everything.

Somewhere in the shop was a cricket trying to compete with everything else.

Micha was hungry, but he dare not stop.

A single typo would ruin the code buried in the story.

He had to send it off to the wire service within an hour.


The nursing home was swollen with wasted breath.

Ina watched for the nurses shadows as they passed her door.

They had just switched the linen, but she itched.

She could feel her children, the activity in their brains.

The medication that she had been forced to take for twenty odd years was no longer dampening her perceptions.

She had a really strong feeling that she had better places to be.

Anyone who tried to stop her would probably be hurting soon.

Tonight, The Angel of Irving would fly again!


Edna and Micha shivered.

Oh, my.


And somewhere above the city, what appeared to be a small girl flew, taking power from the molecular displacements of the internal combustions occuring far below her.

Time, at least the last hundred years, had been kind to Arema.

The more technology there was, the further she could travel without being detected.

In the bad old days she had had occasional bursts of energy, fueled mainly by town burnings, locomotives and riots.

Now a simple rock concert gathering was the bare minimum for her needs.

When she traveled, she observed. When she observed, someone was in for a very interesting day. Or the rest of their life. Which could be the same thing.